Hello. Reality church.
It's so great to be here. What a delight to be invited to
preach, speak, teach, whatever you guys call it here.
If we haven't met before, my name is Justin.
And as Mandy mentioned, my, my role is as pastor at
Resurrection Church in East Boston and the stories of
reality, and Resurrection are intertwined in a pretty cool
way. So, four or five years ago as my
wife and I Our Discerning whether or not there was a need
for a church in East Boston, whether or not we should be a
part of planning a church, I was in conversation with leaders and
pastors at reality who were helping me to CERN.
They got behind our church, plant in East, Boston, supported
us really generously with finances.
We had four people on our core team who were from reality
Church who came with us and we actually have weekly.
We preach from a Pulpit that is the original pulp.
Bit from reality church. It's like so I understand why
y'all got rid of it. It's so heavy.
That's our setup. Team's worst nightmare is moving
that thing but I'm reminded every Sunday when I stand there
with that handmade Pulpit that that our stories our time
together, but we're going to go into this text together this
morning. I wanted to ask if you'd pray
with me before we look at God's word.
God, we open up space in this room.
And in our hearts, in our minds, for your word.
We ask that your Holy Spirit would be moving and active.
Spirit. Remove blinders from our eyes.
We pray that you would shine Illuminating Light on this text
for those who look at it and think, been there, done that,
it's familiar. We pray that you would remove
our calluses that that keep us from being sensitive to how
you'd like to speak to us in your word.
We pray that you would deliver your word personally, right to
our hearts like cool water for a parched tongue, like a hearty
meal for a hungry belly or we long to hear from you this
morning. Speak to us we pray through
Jesus Christ. Our Lord amen.
Back in December, I like many was visiting family for the
holidays and there's something I do on vacation that I don't do
what any other time of the year and that is put together.
Puzzles. Does anyone else do that on
vacation? Okay, I see a couple hands and I
know there are some who are afraid to admit it if you give
me a thousand puzzle pieces and a box lid, with a picture of
like a field on it. Or a cityscape.
I'm good to go for hours. Using my brain in that way.
In my hands, I kind of like the cares of the world sort of drift
away. So I was looking through my
in-laws puzzle collection, trying to find the right one.
And to my surprise, when I pulled out the, the one that
looked most interesting, I opened the box and there was a
piece of paper. Yellowed with age.
It was clear that no one had touched this puzzle and decades
it said missing a piece. Why was this still in the
collection? I wondered because let's be
real. No one's going to put together a
puzzle that they already know. Has a missing piece because
we've all felt the terror of the missing piece.
You get to the end and it's nowhere to be found on your, on
your hands and knees, looking for it on the ground. we know
that feeling of incompleteness, everything else is perfectly in
place and there's that one, empty slot, I'm not doing
puzzles, unless I have a shot at making them whole, right?
Have you ever felt like something's missing?
I've got a hunch that most of us live with an ache.
We live with the longing of the missing piece in our lives.
Even those who appear to have it all together, who look like
they're living the dream, they know the ache, the
dissatisfaction of the missing piece.
Sometimes the missing piece is so a key that it makes us want
to stop putting the puzzle together.
All together you ever felt like that.
It's like, I know this can't be made whole I'm going to back
out. That's called despair.
It's my conviction though. Friends this morning that Jesus
wants to make us whole. He is on a mission to make us
whole where there are wounds he wants our healing where there is
dissatisfaction He wants our Wellness.
He wants our are good desires fulfilled where there's
Brokenness. He's at work towards our
restoration. With Grace, in his eyes, with
power in his hands, he wants to make us whole to meet us where
we are weary empty estranged fragmented as we maybe James
Jesus, desperately longs to make us whole.
We see that all throughout the gospels and we see it in our
text. For today, we're in the
beginning of marks narrative, the second chapter, and Jesus
has already caused a stir. So if you were reading chapter
one, He's been healing people and casting out demons.
He's been declaring the gospel of the Kingdom.
The arrival of God's reign. And you may know Jesus was born
in Bethlehem, right? He was raised in Nazareth and
then he spent most of his life in the region of Galilee.
But interestingly in our text here, we see that he made
something of a second home in a town called Capernaum.
And I want us to kind of check out the text together.
Look at verse 1. It says a few days later.
When Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that
he had come home. You know, you're in trouble when
things are being reported about you the everybody knows your
home. Other translations would say, it
was reported that he was at home.
It was like the paparazzi knew that the wandering healer was
back in town and everyone was interested.
Verse 2 says they gathered in such large numbers that there
was no room left, not even outside the door and he preached
the word to them to put yourself in Jesus shoes.
Okay. We don't often do that reading
scripture, right? But but imagine your Jesus,
you've just gone through Mark chapter 1, you've healed.
All these people, you've had spiritual confrontations with
demons the text in mark. One says that Jesus with
Withdrew to desolate places. No less than three times.
That meant Jesus was getting like, he was engaging spiritual
formation and conversation with his father, three times in the
first chapter of Mark. He's got a lot going on.
And now you're headed home right after this busy time of
ministry. And you think you're finally in
the clear, you sneak in, but you sneak into town, but your house
is surrounded. And your living room is standing
room only, so yes, scripture teaches Jesus was without sin.
It doesn't teach that he was without social exhaustion.
Maybe a little claustrophobia to boot, right?
The God man needs a break and he's not going to get it at
home. You think of the way you feel
when the train is a little too packed?
And you can't really get your hand on a railing.
And, and you're wondering, like, am I gonna go flying into the
person but behind me or in front of me, right?
That's, I would guess that. That is kind of where Jesus is
at emotionally. It's been a lot and he's
crowded. He's, he's squeezed, he's
overwhelmed. And yet we're told at the end of
this verse that, he preached the word to them.
Jesus whole making Mission always includes the preaching of
the word. It always includes an
announcement of the arrival of God's kingdom.
You've probably heard a phrase thrown around by preachers or
maybe like a meme online and inspirational meme that says
preach the gospel always and if necessary use words sometimes
attributed to st. Francis of Assisi, Jesus always
used. Birds not exclusively words, but
he always preached the word. His message was summarized in
Mark 1:14 and 15. It says Jesus came into Galilee.
Proclaiming the gospel of God. And saying the time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the
gospel. So what we find here is that the
wholeness Jesus wants to bring his only available where God
Reigns and where the edicts of the king are heard and heeded
and treasured. You follow that, Jesus wants to
make us whole, but the wholeness is going to come under the Edict
of the king. So often I want the wholeness
that Jesus brings without responding to the word that
Jesus preaches. He came preaching, the reign of
God is here, which means you're not the king.
You're not the queen. The kingdom is at hand, you're
no longer the Arbiter of your own destiny, repent.
He says, we don't like that word turn from self-sufficiency from
Rebellion from sin. Only when we hear and believe
the good news of King Jesus arrival, when we hear and heed,
the Royal edict will wholeness do its work in us.
But let's keep looking at this text.
He preaches the gospel. Inside the home.
And as he's preaching, something else is going on outside, verses
3 and 4 lettuce in on the scene. It says some men came bringing
to him, a paralyzed man carried by four of them, since they
could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made
an opening in the roof above Jesus, by digging through it and
then lowered the mat, the man was lying on So while we re
Jesus preaches in his own living room, he hears something
happening up on the roof. Now, you have to imagine the
kind of roof that we're talking about the the roof would have
had bent like multiple beams covered them with smaller
branches or reads. And then it would have had mud
kind of caked on top of it and carefully tended to.
So the would have been a Stairway.
Imagine like to this roof here, a Stairway up to the roof and
then there would have been a large Stone roller that the
homeowner would use to roll out the roof, every time there was a
storm, right? The roof in this age, was
something that was tended to very carefully.
And so Jesus is in his living room and he there's people up
there and then he starts hearing some disconcerting noises.
Something is going on. He's preaching the crowd looks
around worriedly, because dust and dry mud are starting to come
through the cracks in the ceiling.
Once upon a time, I was preaching, a sermon in a large
room that had dropped ceiling. And there had been a big storm
the night before and unbeknownst to any of us in the room.
There was water, pooling above one of those drop ceiling tiles.
And then the middle of my sermon it, let loose and soaked, like,
five people sitting right over here and just utter shock
because it's, it was like the winter in Boston freezing cold
water. Needless to say, when the roof
caves in it changes things, okay, in the room.
And so imagine, you're kind of like anxiously looking up.
What is going on up there? If this roof caves in?
It's going to change things. Why is Jesus still preaching?
This is what the crowds thinking, the roof, Jesus, the
roof. And he's on about the kingdom of
God. Dust and dry mud fall through
the rushes, overhead do, whatever it takes to get close
to Jesus. The men on the roof are hacking
away desperately, do, whatever it takes to get close to Jesus.
I imagine they're thinking, man, this is crazy.
But they're paralyzed friend turns to them and says, do it,
do whatever it takes to get close to Jesus, The audience is
staring at the ceiling, because light is starting to shine
through, do whatever it takes, to get close to Jesus.
The text says, they dug through the roof.
Do whatever it takes to get close to Jesus.
Then comes the hacking because they have to get through those
support beams. This is not like moving some
brush aside. This is brutal brutish work,
messy, do whatever it takes to get close to Jesus.
And then finally they get a hole big enough to lower their friend
through. Imagine this poor man.
Midair on his back on. Some kind of a mat being lowered
at all. Kinds of uneven, angles, scared
for his own life, but willing to go down.
Because Jesus is there, he says, do whatever it takes to get
close to Jesus only, he can make you whole Finally, he lays on
the ground. At Jesus feet.
He looks into his eyes. And weights.
Friends, my encouragement to you is to do, whatever it takes to
get close to Jesus. The dig through the roof.
Because he is the one who can make you whole to dig through
the roof, even if it's audacious, even if it means you
have to step away from the important work that you're
doing. Even if it is like, socially
unacceptable for you to be close to Jesus, even if it makes you
stick out or seem strange dig through the roof, even if it's
time-consuming Even if it's messy or costly and you're not
totally certain how it's all going to work out in the end,
dig through the roof, do. Whatever it takes to get close
to Jesus. He can make you whole We have a
flat rubber roof on our house in East Boston.
I don't have to roll it out every time it rains.
I mean, I haven't I've seen it one time, right?
I'm told, it's like 10 years old.
I'll probably have to replace it and five to ten more years, not
looking forward to that. It needs some patch work right
now. Apparently So, how would I
respond if someone tore through it into my bedroom?
Where my children's bedroom? I would be furious it would
completely consumed me. I would like, call in sick at
work to solve the problem. I would spend most of the day on
the phone with the insurance company.
Trying to find a contractor to get there.
I would go to Home Depot and buy a tarp.
So I could put it over the hole until somebody got there to fix
it so that nothing else could get into the home.
It would overwhelm me. It would be the only thing I
could see or think about And I would be going after the people
who put the hole in my roof. How does Jesus respond?
When there's a hole in his living room, roof verse 5, says
When Jesus saw their faith. He said to the paralyzed, man.
Son, your sins are forgiven. What?
Jesus opinion on the material loss.
Doesn't even Merit. A mention in the gospel.
Why is that? I think it's because he is so
present. He is so available.
So eager to see the kingdom come.
So attuned to the paralyzed, man before him that the roof is an
afterthought for Jesus. And I want you to see that.
You've already imagined what it would be like to be Jesus, but
put yourself in a different character situation.
The paralyzed man probably was uncertain about about how Jesus
would feel when he got down there.
And what did he find? He found An attentive kind,
caring gays. No friends.
That Jesus is attentively waiting for you.
And he doesn't care how you get to him, and he doesn't care how
messy your processes. Or how long it takes.
Or what state you arrived in. He desperately longs to be close
to you. Especially in your desperation.
So, when you imagine the Gaze of Jesus, what does it, what does
it look like? I want to tell you that it is
not a look of disappointment. That it is, is not a look of a
Stern person with their arms crossed, shaking their head.
What took you so long to get here?
Or why was it so messy or? No, he looks at us with
affection with gladness with compassion.
And what does he say? Son daughter, your sins are
forgiven and that's kind of like a, what moment for me because
the man is paralyzed and they have gone to Great Lengths to
get him here. He's in.
Clear, need of physical healing, right.
And Jesus says, your sins are forgiven.
Perhaps you like me would would be curious, why?
Jesus was taking the conversation in this direction.
Everything seems to be driving toward a dramatic healing like
he had done. All in Mark chapter 1 I often
approached Jesus, wanting to be made whole to have my life
situation changed. Maybe you do this, you want
wholeness from Jesus. You want your relationships
restored. You want Clarity on where you're
supposed to go. What you're supposed to do for
work who you're supposed to date, whether or not you should
get married, how many kids you should have?
I'm not very interested in hearing him, say your sins are
forgiven. If I'm honest, it's partly
because I don't think that sin is that big of a deal Lord have
mercy. Or If we're honest maybe it's
because we just don't want to stop sinning.
Lord have mercy. We want all the benefits of the
Kingdom, the Shalom, the peace, the wholeness, the
reconciliation that Jesus brings, but we want to live our
lives, according to self-rule. In harmony with the spirit of
the age, I'm preaching to the preacher, okay?
We want dual citizenship in the kingdom of God, and in the
domain of Darkness, The Best of Both Worlds.
So we think and in the process we miss out on the wholeness
that Jesus desires for us, the wholeness that comes when God
delivers you, out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom
of his beloved Son. So why does Jesus say your sins
are forgiven? It's because the primary thing
that primary work in your life that God wants to do is the
elimination of estrangement from God.
I didn't say the only thing Thing.
I said that one of the I said the primary thing God wants to
do, that's why there's so much talk about Sin and
Reconciliation in scripture because we are estranged from
God and Jesus will stop at nothing to close the gap.
He doesn't want anything between you and himself.
And he's willing to do. Whatever it takes to remove
anything that stands between you.
Paralyzed man was not the only one confused by what Jesus was
saying. Look at verses 6 and following.
It says, now some teachers of the law were sitting there
thinking to themselves. Why does this fellow talk like
that? He's blaspheming, who can
forgive sins, but God alone, good question.
Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they
were thinking in their hearts and he said to them.
Why are you thinking these things?
The scribes are mad because Jesus has claimed for himself an
authority that belongs only to God the ability to forgive sins.
If he's not God, they rightly accused him of blasphemy.
In fact, Jesus will later be crucified on a blasphemy charge.
Just like this one. This is serious business but
Jesus has a point to make he continues in verse 9 which is
easier to say to this paralyzed. Man your sins are forgiven or to
say get up take your mat and walk.
You tell me We all know the answer to this question.
Anyone can talk nobody can make a paralyzed man walk with the
power of their word. The only person that could do
that would be the same person who spoke this world into
existence with his word of power.
God, Alone could do such a thing.
Jesus continues in verse 10. I want you to know that the son
of man has Authority on Earth to forgive sins.
What is he saying? What I'm about to do is prove
that I have authority to forgive sins.
It's proof that I am the son of the father.
I want you to know. That I have the authority on
Earth to forgive sins so he said to the man I tell you get up
take your mat and go home. He got up and took his mat and
walked out in full view of them. All this amazed everyone and
they praised God saying we've never seen anything like this.
God wants to do something in each of Our Lives.
That makes us say I've never seen anything like this.
I've never seen anything like this in the only way that this
could have come about, Is through contact with the divine.
I contact with the Divine, as it were, imagine the eye contact
between Jesus and the paralyzed, man, we're not told anything
about the man situation. We know that he can't walk,
which means that he likely, he was dependent on other people,
like these friends that have have carried him to Jesus.
So he's never known the joy of a shared burden of carrying
something with another. We don't know if he was injured
during his lifetime. If he was born this way, if he
had a disease or stroke that stole his Mobility, but whatever
the case it was, he likely begged for money.
We have other stories of paralyzed beggars in the gospel.
But they experienced isolation and dehumanization, they were
ignored and derided. And when he makes eye contact
with Jesus, it all changes. Your sins are forgiven.
Jesus says, you are spiritually whole.
You are not a strange from God. Any longer your United to God,
you're welcome in his presence. Jesus goes on.
He says Rise. you are physically whole get up your well walk
around and those atrophied muscles in a moment.
Start start working afresh and anew.
Jesus says, take up your mat. Take up your bed.
You have a calling to bend down to do physical activity, bodily
exertion to work. Jesus says, go home.
Your holy free come and go as you please.
You don't even need those four guys to help you.
Get home. Go home, can you imagine the man
being like, I can go home? I've never seen anything like
this. I can climb onto my own roof and
I can carry my other friend here to come meet Jesus and get the
same thing I got Do whatever it takes to get close to Jesus
only, he can make you whole. So what about the puzzle is?
Jesus, the missing piece in the puzzle of this man's life.
Is that is that the story? That if you plug, Jesus into
your puzzle. That it'll be all right.
And good that you'll be whole just that one missing Jesus
peace in your heart. friends, the gospels drive this point
home again, and again, that Jesus is not the missing piece
in our puzzles, we are missing pieces in his and he is on the
hunt for us. He is looking for us.
We're all Misfit missing pieces. Who don't really fit in
anywhere. And the paralyzed man shows us
that Jesus makes us whole when we're plugged into his story.
What changed for this man? It's not that he got a little
theological content about Jesus and plugged it in its that he
got he got lowered into the story of Jesus, the whole making
story of Jesus. The way Jesus responds to him
shows us that the god of the Bible is the kind of God who
gets down on his hands and knees and goes looking for those
missing pieces of his puzzle. Just as he looks for the Lost
coin and the lost sheep and the prodigal son.
He's the God who has made a place for all of our Jagged
edges, all of our rips and tears.
All of our sun damage and coffee stains.
He's made a place for us in his picture.
He takes the stuff of Our Lives. That doesn't seem to make any
sense, and he gently places Us in his new picture, his new
story, and we are made whole. We fit in the story of Jesus.
We belong in the story of Jesus. We are home in the story of
Jesus. He longs to make us whole So
friends, my word to you today is to do whatever it takes to get
to Jesus, to dig through the proverbial roof.
To bring him, your desperation, your exhaustion, anxiety, Gloom
hopelessness, apathy numbness, pain, wounds sickness, bring him
your body, your soul, your relationships, your work, your
longings, your marriage, your parenting, your everything, lay
yourself at the feet of Jesus, and look into his tender eyes.
He has a place tailor-made for you.
In his story. He Longs for you to be made
whole in him. And how much does he long to
make us? Whole In the Incarnation, God is
taking on flesh, in the person of Jesus, God has dug through
the proverbial roof of Heaven to descend into our world and to
carry out his sin forgiving whole making mission.
The father said to the son who said to the spirit, do whatever
it takes to get close to our people.
Dig through the roof, do whatever it takes, take up the
cross. Do whatever it takes bear in
your body son, all of the pain, all of the estrangement the
fragmentation thus in the Brokenness to death, do whatever
it takes. Go down to cold death, know the
grave from the inside. So you can turn death, Inside
Out, do, whatever it takes, and the sun, risen and ascended,
poured out, the spirit and said, do whatever it takes to get
close to our people. Take up residence in them.
Dwell within them that we might make them whole And how will we
respond today, friends? Are we open to this movement of
the Divine toward us? And are we willing to move
toward god? Father, son and spirit who long
to make us whole. I pray that it be.
So would you join me in prayer?